


The Price of Leadership

by dsa_archivist



Category: due South
Genre: Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-04-07
Updated: 2000-04-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 15:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11129823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsa_archivist/pseuds/dsa_archivist
Summary: How does one live with the decision that may cost lives?





	The Price of Leadership

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Speranza, the archivist: this story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Due South Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/duesoutharchive).
    
    
    I write this for all the leaders who have to make the dangerous choices.
    I'm with Diogenes and J. Michael Straczynski on this one...give me an
    honest man willing to die for all the wrong reasons....
    
    The Price of Leadership
    
    (c) 2000 by M. Megan O'Neil
    
    	Pain.  That was all she felt.  Pain searing through her right arm and
    blazing in her ribs.  Meg slumped forward in exhaustion, biting back
    the stab of pain in her ribs.  She rested her head in her hand, trying
    to ignore the beeps of the moniter.  She raised tired eyes to the still
    figure on the bed.
    	Benton Fraser took labored breaths, the air raspy through the tubes.
    One bullet through a perfect angel in scarlet had created this broken
    man struggling for breath.  The harsh sterility of the white room and
    white sheets hurt her eyes.  The bile the disinfectant smell brought
    up forced its way up her throat.  She bolted for the bathroom, heaving
    over the toilet, exorcising the filth and violence of the night. 	The
    vomit forced itself up again and again, splattering on her serge, falling
    in chunks on the toilet seat, burning her esophagus and cutting off her
    breath.  The bathroom permeated with the stench of it.
    	Large hands held back her dark hair as she dry heaved over and over.
    Meg fell back against the wall.  Her body was trembling from the pent
    up emotions that forced their way through her mind and soul.  She drew
    her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly, trying to curl up
    into a ball and disappear from the blood and filth. 	Lieutenant Harding
    Welsh stared down at the woman whom Vecchio had dubbed The Dragon Lady.
    Normally she was formidable enough to intimidate even him.  Tonight,
    though, the dragon's wings had been clipped and all that was left behind
    was this broken, sobbing woman.  It was impossible to tell whether the
    red she wore was blood or Mountie serge.  	Thatcher's perfect, pale cheek
    had an angry gash, a gaping, bloody canyon across snowy skin.  She was
    a broken, ugly reminder of what had gone wrong tonight, a pitiful hero
    who had tried and lost.
    	Welsh thought of Vecchio tossing feverishly in his hospital bed, ranting
    and raving like a lunatic.  He thought of Fraser clinging to life by
    a precious thread in the next room.  And then there was the lonely, forgotten
    figure at his feet.  Tonight, the good guys had lost.  He bent down,
    taking the fragile, shaking figure into his arms.  A sobbing voice whispered,
    "I thought-we-It was my decision.  I--me-I didn't want to send him in--And
    Vecchio...I had to."
    	Harding Welsh stroked a dark head bathed in sweat and blood.  He rocked
    her, shushing quiet agony.  "You and I picked our best men to go in with
    us.  It was a right decision, Thatcher."
    	"It's my fault.  My fault."
    	He smiled sadly, softening the bitter truth.  "No.  Just damned unfair.
    The price of leadership is doing what's necessary, not what you want."
    	The dam broke and she finally cried, letting the wound in her soul drain
    and scab over.  Harding Welsh rocked Meg Thatcher as she wept on the
    sterile floor of a hospital bathroom.  In the next room, Benton Fraser's
    heart moniter beeped slowly. 
    
    	"How do you know the Chosen Ones?  No greater love hath a man than he
    lay down his life for his brother...not for millions, not for glory,
    not for fame, but for one person, in the dark, where no one will ever
    know or see..."
    	-J. Michael Straczynski, BABYLON 5, "Comes the Inquisitor"
    


End file.
